IAP Research Day to be held on March 17th, 2004

On Wednesday March 17, 2004, our department will be
holding its 4th Annual Industrial Affiliates Program (IAP) Research Day.
This is an opportunity for our students to show off results from their
research work and to get feedback from a broad audience. More importantly,
it is a wonderful opportunity for members of our larger
community---including alumni of the department---to get acquainted with the
various research projects undertaken by members of our faculty.

The main event in our IAP Research Day is a Poster
Session, which will be held in the CS Research Lab from 10:00am to 2:00pm
(with Lunch served at 12:30pm). During this poster session, attendees are
invited to walk through the lab, browse through the over 40 posters on
display, listen to on-demand brief presentations and demonstrations by
graduate students, and chat with faculty members. The format of the Poster
Session is intentionally flexible and informal to accommodate the wide
interests and time constraints of our guests, who are welcome to come for
any part of the session (noting that the period from 1:00pm-2:00pm will also
be open to undergraduate students of our department). A list of poster
abstracts is available from:
http://www.cs.bu.edu/IAP/ResearchDay2004

Research Excellence
Awards for 2003 Announced

In early 2003, the CS faculty resolved to create a
Research Excellence Award (REA) to present to Ph.D. students who have
produced outstanding research results over the course of their careers at
Boston University. To be considered for this award, students must first be
nominated by their advisor. The winners are then recommended by a faculty
REA selection committee and approved by the entire faculty. Two graduate
students won these awards for 2003: Liang Guo (PhD'03) and Shudong Jin
(PhD'03).

Liang Guo's Ph.D. thesis (under Professor Ibrahim Matta)
considered novel extensions to the existing Internet architecture to manage
traffic using fast flow classification. Results from his thesis have been
widely disseminated in top networking conferences and have spurred a great
deal of interest in the community at large. Liang has accepted a position as
a Research Scientist at Motorola Labs.

Shudong Jin's Ph.D. thesis (under Professor Azer
Bestavros) looked at scalable content delivery on the Internet and at
various aspects that affect it. Specifically, he looked at the impact of
workload characteristics and of Internet topology on the scalability of
end-system multicast and streaming content delivery techniques. Numerous
results from his thesis were published in some of the best venues in
networking. Shudong has accepted a tenure-track assistant professorship in
the CS department of Case Western Reserve University.

Currently, the department is funding REA awards through
discretionary funds available to individual faculty members. Suggestions for
other means to support this initiative are welcome!

Leonid Levin Delivers the 2004 Kolmogorov
Lecture

Professor Leonid Levin delivered the 2004 Kolmogorov
Lecture and was awarded the Kolmogorov Medal "in recognition of his
contribution to science".

This annual University of London
lecture celebrates the life and work of Andrei Nikolaevich Kolmogorov, one
of the greatest mathematical and scientific minds of the last century. The
lecture addresses current issues arising from the impact of Kolmogorov’s
work in the fields of mathematical and computer science. Each Kolmogorov
Lecture is given by one of the leading figures in their field, who is
presented with a medal in recognition of their own contribution to science.

In announcing the 2004 Lecture, the Kolmogorov Lecture
committee noted:

Professor Levin, one of the world’s
foremost researchers in the field of Kolmogorov Complexity, works in the
field of mathematical probability and the theory of computation,
particularly in regard to randomness and complexity in computing. First
introduced to Kolmogorov at the age of 15 during a school visit, he was
later taught by Kolmogorov at Moscow University and was advised by him for
his doctoral thesis. Professor Levin went on to become one of the
originators of the theory of NP completeness (alongside S.A. Cook and R.
Karp).

CS and Biology at BU Team Up in a
$2.4M Ecosystem NSF Project

Computer Science Professor Margrit Betke and Biology
Professor Thomas Kunz have assembled a multidisciplinary team (from fields
including biology, computer science, mathematics, meteorology, entomology,
and economics) that will deploy an unprecedented battery of high-tech
gadgetry (including infrared thermal imaging cameras, Doppler radar,
ultrasonic recording devices, and the emerging technology of computer
vision) to measure the benefits bats provide to natural and agricultural
ecosystems. This team secured a five-year $2.4 million grant from the
National Science Foundation's ITR program to pursue its goals.

Computer vision (a key technology in the
bat-censusing project-is a concept about as counterintuitive as a bat's
ability to "see" with sonar). Scientists, including CAS Assistant
Professor Margrit Betke, are teaching computers to "see" in a way
analogous to the way humans do-to interpret real-world visual data,
whether it's cars on a highway, faces in a crowd, or clouds of flapping
bats. Computer vision techniques could aid in homeland security, traffic
management, and the creation of adaptive technologies that allow disabled
people to use computers and appliances-among many other potential
applications. In the bat-censusing project, Betke and Associate Professor
Stan Sclaroff, along with GRS student Stephen Crampton and CAS senior
Diane Hirsh, trained their computers to interpret thermal video images of
Brazilian free-tailed bats swarming from Texas caves. Each frame of the
video is a mosaic of pixels. Some of these pixels depict bats, while the
rest are trees, sky, and other parts of the world that the scientists
refer to as "non-bat" or, simply, "uninteresting," at least according to
the parameters of this project.

20th Anniversary Lecture Series Features Icons in
Many CS Areas

The 20th Anniversary Lecture Series, which runs through
the 2003/2004 Academic year, kicked into high gear with world-renown CS
icons giving lectures throughout the Fall 2003 Semester.

On October 27th, our department played host to Michael
Rabin of Harvard University, one of the most celebrated figures of Computer
Science, who has been recognized by awards including the ACM Turing Award,
The IEEE Charles Babbage Award, The Harvey Prize for Science and Technology,
as well as by election to academies including the US National Academy of
Sciences, the French Academy of Sciences and the Israel Academy of Sciences
and Humanities. In his lecture, Michael Rabin presented his recent work on
hyperencryption and practical everlasting security.

On November 3rd, our department welcomed Takeo Kanade who
gave a lecture on Video Acquisition, Processing and Modeling of a Dynamic
Scene by Many Cameras. Dr. Kanade is a leading figure in multiple areas of
robotics: vision, multimedia, manipulators, autonomous mobile robots, and
sensors. He has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, and is
a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of ACM, and a Founding Fellow of American
Association of Artificial Intelligence.

On November 24th, Bruce Maggs of Carnegie Melon
University gave a lecture on various technical issues related to Content
Delivery Networks (CDNs), drawing on his experience as Akamai Technologies'
Vice President for Research and Development.

On December 8th, Albert Meyer delivered a lecture
in which he recounted his experience with an experimental approach to
teaching computability theory using the Scheme programming language at MIT.
Prof. Meyer is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a
Fellow of the ACM.

On December 15th, Jon Crowcroft of Cambridge University
(UK) wrapped up the lecture series for the Fall semester. His lecture on
Scalable Ubiquitous Computing Systems touched up on the fantastic challenges
ahead of the CS community as we increasingly embed computers in our
environment, weaving them in the fabric of our homes, shops, vehicles and
even farms. Jon Crowcroft is one of the leading figures in the networking
community. He is a fellow of the ACM, a fellow of the British Computer
Society, a Fellow of the IEE and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of
Engineering, and a Senior Member the IEEE.

The purpose of the BUCS 20th Anniversary Colloquium
Series is to bring to campus some of the most prominent computer scientists
in order to introduce them (and in many cases to re-introduce them) to the
department so that they may see first-hand how far the department has come
along, and in order for the department to hear of their impressions and
feedback on the department's ambitions for the coming years.

Currently, the department is funding this Lecture Series
through its IAP funds and we are actively looking for ways to establish a
permanent Distinguished Lecture Series that would run annually. Suggestions
for other means to support this initiative are welcome!

Department
Holiday Party Held at The Castle!

The department faculty and students were treated to an
end-of-semester party at the BU Castle. With family and friends we
celebrated the end of a wonderful year with many successes that made us all
proud! It was a blast!

Note: You are
receiving this quarterly newsletter because you are a registered member of
BUCAN and/or you have been identified as somebody who may be interested in staying in touch with the Computer Science
Department at Boston University. If you prefer not to receive such a
newsletter, please let us know by contacting us at <bucan-admin@cs.bu.edu>